“Your father was a good friend,” says Ratio. “We fought together against the Backstroke. Like so many of our order, he was betrayed and murdered by Reaching the West Reaches; now the Hopeless Warriors are all but extinct.” He’s rummaging through a chest. “But when you were old enough, he wanted you to have this…”
“Is it a war-name?” says See Me eagerly. “A bolter?”
“Bolters are clumsy and random.” Frowning, the old man draws out a long blade of steel–knifelike, but impossibly long and slender.
“What is it?”
“An elegant weapon,” says Ratio, “for a more civilized time.”
Thursday, October 11, 2007
“All right, Tikal,” says Mother, “you’re thirteen now! Time to choose whether to Buy In to the Great Collective.”
“Is that a real choice?” asks Tikal. “Everyone I know–”
Father frowns. “It wouldn’t be much of a Collective if we were forced to join!”
“What if I refuse?”
“You get thirteen thousand thalers,” says Mother.
“Wow!”
“And nothing else, ever again,” says Father. “Also, you can’t work, or invest, or actually spend it at any Collective institution.”
Tikal considers it. “I think,” he says, “I’ll Buy In.”
Mother claps happily. “Splendid! Let’s pick your new middle name off the approved list.”
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The scavenger’s daughter saves out the honey from a broken crock and the copper from insulated wires. She saves out pearled buttons and the flints from lighters, compass needles, the lenses of little round eyeglasses. She keeps them in the cage of her chest.
She gives almost all of it to her father for bartering days, but this time he isn’t waiting to collect the day’s catch. She finds him at the back door, clutching his chest.
“Lunette,” he whispers. “Lunette, I’m so cold, my darling, so–”
She saves out his eyes and teeth, and the rings on his little fingers.
Maybelline camps out on those great wide American steps and won’t leave, which gets easier when somebody donates a camp shower and a cot. Her posterboard sign grows weathered; somebody gives her a plywood copy. Passersby ask her to shake their hands. People hear about it as far away as Norway and Morocco, and some of them come to join her.
Eventually a man in a black suit comes out to see them. “Fine,” he says, “we’ll concede whatever you want! But–look, you know you’re not in Washington, right? Just the EPCOT plaza?”
“I don’t understand the question,” says Maybelline.
The male seahorse, unusually, has the babies. The female seahorse (Debra) is kind of freaked out about this.
“When did you last see him?” ask the seahorse police.
“He said he was just taking them to his mom’s for the weekend,” frets Debra. “That was yesterday morning, then I called her and she says he never even mentioned–I–I knew I shouldn’t have complained about his cooking!”
“Let me guess,” chuckles the seahorse police officer, “cold or burnt, and never ready when you got home?” He and Debra share an understanding look.
A few weeks later he gets morning sickness.
“But when I’m fighting,” says Alex quietly, “it’s like–”
“Don’t say a dance,” groans Phillip.
Alex laughs. “No. It’s like walking on one of those things at the museum, where it lights up and plays a tone where you tread, except each move subtly changes the chord.”
“Seriously?” says Tyler. “I get wireframes and countdown timers, pick a path, hit the targets…”
“What about you, Daniel?” says Phillip.
Daniel smiles. “Pachinko,” he says. “Pachinko forever, and I always win.”
“Toe?”
“Huh?”
“What do you see when you fight?”
Toe blinks. “A bunch of people,” he says, “trying to–like–hit me?”
Thursday, October 4, 2007
When you come into being on the Elemental Plane of Compost, there’s only so far down your life can go, but Mrrgthop have plumbed it. Giving wormjobs for acetone in the bathroom of Chili’s would be a step up, if Chili’s didn’t keep their bathrooms so damn clean.
“How much?” they gurgle.
“You’re organic, right?” asks the customer, fingers twitching.
“Technically,” say Mrrgthop, “yes.”
“Sixteen ounces,” she breathes.
Mrrgthop stick a pseudolimb into the grinder and bag the result. “You know there’s no FDA-approved study that indicates–” they begin.
“Who the fuck cares?” says the customer, and downs a handful.
“Okay,” says Byron. “Aside from the big red numbers counting down on this circuit box wired to a wad of… something, are we even sure it is an ED?”
Avery scratches his head. “Well, I mean, no. The dogs didn’t go off on it, and there’s nothing coming up on the Geiger…”
“Oh hell,” says Byron, “it’s a time bomb.”
“Really?” says Avery. “Shit, how long until it goes off?”
Byron’s voice is shaking. “I don’t think you understand. It’s a time–”
“Really?” says Avery, and there’s a quiet click. “Shit, how long until it goes off?”
“Oh hell,” says Byron.
Inevitably, Horatio puts his balls up on his tactilog. He titles them “a soft puppy.” Nobody is fooled.
After a couple months he gets worried about his political career (you never know) and deletes them. Then he gets worried about Google and reposts under the same title, with a feelie that actually is of a soft puppy. He considers the Wayback but doesn’t really know how to fix that.
Finally, on his thirtieth birthday, he puts his balls back up. He’s embracing his mistakes! He’s living up and owning up. He’s not afraid to age.
He spends a while in jail.
Friday, September 28, 2007